FORESTER slept long and soundly, having no one to disturb him in his solitude. When he awoke his first thought was that it was Sunday, and that he was to hear Jack preach. He dressed quickly, for it was nearly ten o’clock, made a hasty breakfast, and then went to the Castle to ask what time the service would begin, as he had forgotten to enquire the night before.
To his surprise he found that there was no morning service in Hildick, but that his friend would have gone to a village four miles off to take the service there, and that he would only preach in Hildick in the evening.
Forester wished that he had known this before, for he would gladly have accompanied Jack on his long walk. As it was, there was nothing to be done but to wait until the evening, as it was far too late to walk to Carlington. He therefore determined to go down to the shore and to spend the morning sitting on the rocks.
Sunday at Hildick was like Sunday in the good old days of our fathers, when the fourth commandment was respected and obeyed. Perfect quiet reigned everywhere; no one was working in the fields; there was no disquieting noise to be heard. The bleating of sheep, the lowing of cattle, and the singing of birds were the only sounds that fell upon his ear. What a contrast to London, with its increasing disregard of Sunday observance!
The shore was almost deserted; a few village boys were sitting on the shingle, and in the far distance he could see Joyce Sinclair running with her dogs over the sand, but no one else was in sight. He wondered what had become of them all that lovely morning, and he inwardly groaned to think that he would have to spend it alone; and this in spite of the fact that only a few days before his aim had been to avoid society and to live the life of a recluse.
He went up the path leading to the old church. It took him across a green sward, on which were growing beautiful trees, through the branches of which he could obtain lovely views of the sea, like bright pictures set in a leafy frame. Then he came to a gate, and, passing through this, he found himself in the ancient churchyard. The sea lay just beneath it, and he could hear the waves dashing upon the rocks below.
The graves were unlike any that he had seen before. There were no mounds, but they were quite level with the path, and each one was picked out with an edging of white stone, in a shape that looked like the outline of a mummy’s coffin. It gave the churchyard a most weird appearance; it looked as if the Röntgen rays had streamed upon it, and had brought to light the shadowy forms of the quiet dead who lay far beneath the ground. He found several old graves of the Norris family, but beyond these he saw little to interest him. He concluded that Martha must be the favorite name in Hildick, for on several of the stones he read the inscription:
SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF MARTHA.
Then he walked round the old church, which had stood on those rocks for seven hundred years or more. The door was locked, but he looked in through the window, and saw that it was very plain and unadorned, and appeared to be exceedingly dark, for the windows were small, and the wall in which they were set was several feet in thickness. He thought of the many generations of men and women who had come up that shady path, and had worshipped in the little church. Where were they now? They had passed away, and even the stones that marked their last resting place on earth had crumbled and fallen to pieces.
The whole place struck Forester as rather dismal, and yet never was churchyard in a prettier spot. Standing as it did with deep woods above it, the rocky coast below, the blue sea beyond, with no sound to be heard in it but the song of the birds and the sound of many waters, what more peaceful or picturesque resting place could be found for the quiet dead?
The doctor, however, was glad to come out into the sunshine again, and to climb down the rocks just outside the churchyard enclosure. The tide was low, so he made up his mind to walk round to the promontory and to climb to the top of it, thus returning to his tent without having to pass through the village or to retrace his steps.
He was sauntering along, and a feeling of loneliness was once more stealing over him, when suddenly he caught sight of a shady straw hat just appearing above a rock in front of him. He walked on, wondering who it could be, and came upon Doris Somerville reading a book, and so intent upon it that she did not hear him coming.
‘Good morning, Miss Somerville, don’t let me disturb you. What a cozy seat you have found under that rock!’
‘Yes, I’ve been sitting here a long time; it’s too hot to walk much today.’
‘Is there room for me?’ said Forester. ‘But perhaps you want to read?’
‘Oh no,’ said Doris. ‘I’ve been reading a long time, and I’ve finished my chapter.’
‘Where is everyone this morning, Miss Somerville? The shore seems deserted.’
‘They’ve all gone to Carlington with Jack. I meant to have gone too, but father was not very well, and we had breakfast late; but he’s all right again now, so I thought I would come down to the shore.’
Forester was playing idly with the pebbles beside him, throwing one from time to time into a little pool that the last tide had left behind. His next remark sounded rather abrupt.
‘Why did you say “Thank you” last night?’
‘“Thank you”?’
‘Yes; when I told you I had made a fool of myself, you said “Thank you”!’
‘Oh, I remember,’ she said, blushing. ‘I was only glad you trusted me enough to tell me.’
‘Were you?’
Such a grateful, pleased look came into his eyes with the words! But Doris quickly changed the subject. ‘Don’t you like a Sunday in the country?’
‘Yes, I suppose I do,’ he said. ‘I used to like it. I haven’t cared much for Sundays at all, just lately.’
‘Why not?’
‘Now, I’m going to trust you again,’ he said. ‘Because I’ve been like an instrument out of tune.’
‘Out of tune with Sunday?’
‘Yes.’
There was silence for some minutes after this. Forester was gazing steadily out to sea, where a little boat was sailing along with the wind.
It was Doris who spoke first: ‘Isn’t it a pity?’ she said.
‘What? To be the untuned instrument? Yes, I suppose it is. But I’ve been upset lately—terribly upset—and somehow I haven’t cared for anything. I have been reckless, I think, ready to run anywhere, or to do anything to get away from my own thoughts. By the bye, do you know what it is to get a thing in your head and not to be able to remember it all? I’ve had two lines in my head almost ever since I came here. My mother taught me them when I was a small child—those are the things that stick, I think— but, for the life of me, I can’t remember the end of this verse.’
‘What is it?’ said Doris; ‘tell me the beginning, and perhaps I can help you.’
‘“While place we seek or place we shun,
The soul finds happiness in none.”’
‘This is the end:
“But with my God to guide my way
‘Tis equal joy to go or stay.”’
‘Of course it is,’ said Forester; ‘I remember it now.’ Their conversation was interrupted by the approach of footsteps, and two men passed them. They never noticed Forester and Doris, who were still sitting under the rock, but went on with their conversation, which was evidently a very heated one.
The doctor saw at once who they were, the antiquarian, Clegg, and his artist friend. They were both very much excited, and were talking in loud angry voices.
‘I tell you, it’s not enough,’ said the artist.
‘Enough? It’s a great deal too much,’ returned the other. ‘Two pounds a week, and a big percentage when the job’s finished!’
Forester could hear no more, for the men had passed on.
‘What horrid-looking men!’ said Doris.
‘Yes; don’t you recognize one of them?’ Doris looked again.
‘Oh yes, of course; the short one is that thin-lipped man that sat next you on the coach.’
‘The same,’ said Forester. ‘He and his friend are up to something at the Castle. What it is I can’t make out, but I mean to keep my eye on them both.’
The little church on the rocks was well filled at all times of the year; in summer, when the visitors were in Hildick, it was full to overflowing. Old Mr. Norris informed Forester that if he wanted a seat he would have to be there an hour before the time for service. The doctor took this statement with a very large grain of salt, but he thought he would go down the hill and sit on the rocks near the church until the last bell began to ring.
However, he found that a stream of people poured into the tiny church as soon as the doors were opened, and on second thoughts he decided to follow them. It was well he did, for the church was already full, and chairs were being let down by a rope from a trapdoor in the bell tower to fill up the tiny aisle. He saw his friend Rupert in the choir, and the Mainwarings, Sinclairs, and Somervilles were sitting near the door. Leonard and several other boys were placed in a row on the steps of the chancel, in order to make more room for the grown-up people.
A chair was put for the doctor by a tall man who he concluded was the verger, and he found himself between Don Mainwaring and little Joyce Sinclair. The latter turned round and smiled at him as he sat down, and then took him under her wing during the service, letting him look over her hymnbook, finding the places for him with great determination, and pushing her footstool towards him that he might share it with her.
Jack read the service in a clear, manly voice. The singing was grand—at least, Forester thought so. A critically musical ear would no doubt have detected many notes out of tune, and have discovered mistakes and faults of manifold kinds. But Forester did not profess to be musical, and the thorough heartiness of the congregation charmed him beyond measure. Everyone was singing; men, women, and children were all taking their part, and it would have been difficult for anyone in the church to resist the infectious earnestness which seemed to pervade the whole place.
Then Jack went into the pulpit, and a hush fell upon the little congregation as he rose from the prayer and stood to give out his text. There was a moment’s pause whilst Jack was rallying his forces. It was a nervous thing for him, a very trying ordeal, to stand up and preach to his mother, to his brother and sisters, to his old uncle, who was sitting all attention just in front of him, and above all to Forester, his schoolfellow and friend, who had always been far more clever than he was, and to whom he had ever looked up with admiring eyes, as to one who was miles above him in intellect and power of mind. Who was he, that he should preach to Forester? But that feeling was only for a moment. In the next, he had forgotten everyone in the church, and only remembered the presence of the One whose servant he was, the Lord and Master in whose strength and for whose sake he was going to speak, whose blessed message of love he had been sent to deliver.
There was no trembling in Jack’s voice when he began. Clearly and distinctly the words of his text fell on Forester’s ear and rang through the old church.
‘“We have known and believed the love that God hath to us.”’
It was a simple, manly sermon, with no pretense to eloquence or flowery speech, but its very simplicity, its downright earnestness, carried his hearers with him throughout it all. He began by quoting two lines of a hymn which, he said, they all loved, and had known since they were children:
‘Till in the ocean of Thy love
We lose ourselves in Heaven above.’
And then he showed how the love of God did indeed resemble the ocean. There, from that little church perched on the very verge of the sea, he carried them in thought far out to the expanse beyond. He pictured a tiny fish swimming in those mighty waters, surrounded by them on every side; and as it swims on, finding no end to the great tracts of ocean, no limit to the vast expanse of water in which it lives, it moves, and has its being. Then he compared it to a human soul, surrounded by the love of God, an endless, fathomless ocean, the bounds of which he will never reach in this life, no, nor in the untold ages of eternity.
Next, he spoke of the awful depth of the sea, and of the mystery of the mighty waters, which, in places, no man had fathomed or explored; and he showed how, in like manner, the love of God had depths of which none of us know anything, mysteries of mercy and goodness and loving-kindness which we can never explain in this life, nor possibly in the life to come.
He went on to remind each one of his hearers, that in that ocean of God’s love he himself had come into being, and that, ever since his birth, he had been surrounded by it. Love had been the very atmosphere, the very element in which his life had been spent, love shown in thousands of different ways; in gifts of health and comfort and prosperity, in home joys and affections, by dangers averted, by difficulties removed, by prayers answered—nothing but love from the first day of life until now. And even the sorrows, anxieties, and disappointments being only so many fresh proofs of that love which will not let us cling to earth, lest we lose the enjoyment and infinite delight of exploring the ocean of His love in eternity, of participating in the fulness of joy in His presence, and the pleasures for evermore at His right hand.
And then Jack suddenly changed his simile, and he made them see the love of God as a strong golden cable, sent to draw us into the everlasting glory above. He showed them that that cable was a threefold cord, composed of three distinct and wonderful strands. The first strand, the love of God the Father, Who, seeing us lost and ruined and without a chance of anything in the future except reaping the consequences of sin, looks down upon us with infinite pity, and loves us with such mighty love that He gives His Son, His only Son, His dearest, His best, His most beloved, for us.
The second strand, the love of the Lord Jesus Christ, Who for us men and for our salvation leaves the glory for the shame, the throne for the manger, the adoration of angels for the contempt of sinful man; and Who, after being despised and rejected by the very ones He came to save, actually lays down His life to pay the penalty of our sin.
The third strand, the love of the Spirit, striving with us day by day, bearing with us in all our waywardness, doing His very utmost to bring us to see the love of the Father, to accept the love of the Son.
He reminded them that a threefold cord cannot be broken, and that this golden cable of love; the love of Father, Son, and Spirit, is an Almighty cable—able to rescue, able to save, able to draw each one of us into eternal glory.
But it was the end of the sermon which seemed to go straight to Forester’s heart.
‘“We have known and believed the love.” Have we?’ he asked. ‘Have I? Have you? Can you change the pronoun and say, I have known; I have believed? By my own personal experience I have tested that love, and found it unfailing. I have known and believed the love of the Father, and have accepted His priceless, unspeakable gift. I have known and believed the love of the Son. I have seen Him hanging on the cross of shame for me. I have realized that He died in my place. I have taken Him as my representative. I have laid my sins on Him, and have accepted His wonderful salvation. I have known and believed the love of the Spirit. I have listened to His pleadings. I have yielded to His strivings. I have welcomed His loving guidance. I have known and believed the love of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. I cannot sound it; I cannot measure it; but I know it surrounds me at this moment, and will ever surround me. In it I live and move and have my being. In it I will trust, and will rejoice all the days of my life on earth, until I am called higher, and am able to enjoy and revel in the same love, in all its fulness, in the wonderful life beyond.
“Till in the ocean of that love
I lose myself in Heaven above.”’
Then came the closing hymn, which seemed the very echo of the sermon:
‘Souls of men, why will ye scatter
Like a crowd of frightened sheep?
Foolish hearts, why will ye wander
From a love so true and deep?
For the love of God is broader
Than the measure of man’s mind,
And the heart of the Eternal
Is most wonderfully kind.
If our love were but more simple
We should take Him at His word,
And our lives would be all sunshine
In the sweetness of our Lord.’
Very quietly the congregation dispersed. They came out to find a beautiful sunset sky, and everyone went down to the shore and walked along the water’s edge. The Sinclairs, Mainwarings, and Somervilles all formed one party, and Forester joined them as they left the church.
They seemed quite a crowd as they started together on the beach, but it is in the nature of crowds to disperse, and soon they were scattered all over the shore—the younger ones far ahead, and the others coming at a more leisurely pace behind.
Mr. and Mrs. Sinclair had begun their married life in India, and, as Mr. Somerville had also lived there for many years, they had much in common, and found that they had several common friends.
Jack, who was a great lover of children, had not joined the party, but had gone up the hill with Joyce to fetch her dogs, that they might have a run on the sands before being shut up for the night. The rest of the young people walked on quickly together to the other side of the bay.
The tide was fast coming in, and washing to land a variety of things; long pieces of sugarcane, old bottles, seaweed of many different kinds, driftwood, shells, and sea-urchins were coming to shore on the busy waves. Doris stopped to watch a curious object a little way out on the tide.
‘It looks like a shoe,’ she said.
It was a sabot, a wooden shoe thrown overboard from some French boat. Forester stopped with her, and they waited patiently, until at last, with a merry laugh, she pulled it out of the water.
‘I wonder who wore that old thing,’ she said.
‘Isn’t it quaint? I shall take it home as a curiosity.’
Forester carried it for her, and they went on towards the cliffs at the head of the bay. By this time the others were considerably ahead of them, so once more he found himself alone with Doris.
‘You were quite right,’ he said.
‘What, about that being a shoe?’
‘No, about Jack’s sermon. I forgot all about Jack himself.’
‘I knew you would,’ she answered.
‘Miss Somerville, I feel tonight as if I would give all I possess to change places with Jack.’
‘Do you?’ she said. ‘I wonder if you would change with him! Do you know where Jack lives? I went once to see him. We found him in a dismal back street; he has to live there to be near his own people. And his landlady! Such a frowsy old dame! She can cook a chop fairly well, but nothing else, I believe. His room is small and dark, and looks out on a blank wall, and there Jack grinds away at his sermons, and is at the beck and call of all the people round. He can never take off his boots in the evening and get in a chair by the fire and feel that work is done. They come to him at all hours of the day and night. Now it’s a baby to be baptized, now a dying person to be visited, now somebody out of work who wants a character written, or somebody else who wants new boots or something of that sort.’
‘Not a very lively sort of life, I should imagine,’ said Forester.
‘No, you wouldn’t think so, but Jack is lively enough. I never saw anyone enjoy life more. He is in the best of spirits the whole time, and won’t let any of us say that it’s a hard life.’
‘In fact,’ said Forester, laughing, ‘that verse I was trying to remember is an exact description of Jack and of me. The first two lines are Norman Forester:
“While place we seek or place we shun
The soul finds happiness in none.”
And the last two lines are Jack Mainwaring:
“But with my God to guide my way
‘Tis equal joy to go or stay.”’
Doris did not answer, but asked him how he liked the Hildick singing, and the conversation drifted into other channels. The others soon after this turned round, and they formed one party again, and as it was fast growing dark they hurried homeward.